The Mare Gods The Sword of Nubium

by J.M. Thomas

marble, and indeed, precious few communities in the world did not feature Nubium on some public space be it a preserve, a town square, or, in the case of the Magnificent Mile, the god in dozens of poses lining each side of the avenue. When people stopped to observe one of these representations, they did so out of marvel and not some notion they needed to genuflect. The statues were of a god in every sense of the word.

  He had a personality to allow himself to be worshipped and, in the case of the thousands whom he had bedded, adored, and he could allow it to not consume himself. Nubium knew who he was and how it made humans, men and women alike, feel, and it rarely changed his course.

  It was to Fecunditatus, the god of fertility to whom so many prayers and offerings were responsible for bundles of joy, to prevent Nubium's prowess from populating the Earth with an entire race of demigods.

  "The guilty should be sterile," Fecunditatus said.

  Nubium, fiddling with his sword as he did when he found himself disinterested in the topic at hand, shrugged away the statement. He reclined on a couch padded in the fur of stag he had hunted. Rarely did he take to his own throne as he never felt the need to illustrate how he was above any god or man who elected to request an audience. He knew it, so did they, and the pretense was never required.

  "Tell me, Brother, how will the human race continue?"

  "Not all are guilty," Fecunditatus said.

  The corner of Nubium's mouth slid to a smirk.

  "Twelve people cannot populate the Earth. Would you have twelve people be held responsible for the future of their race?"

  "If sin prevents more than one dozen among the planet then, yes, to the twelve I leave their species."

  Nubium rolled his eyes. As the elder of the Five, Fecunditatus could remember all of the time when Summus lorded over the lords of Earth. There was nothing he had not seen, and in his pale gray eyes the history of life and death were recorded. None of the Five doubted his place as first among equals, and that Summus held him in special favor raised their ire only when he would cast a veto within familial disputes, but none bowed to him and the crinkly crepe paper that appeared to compose his body.

  Fecunditatus, on the other hand, resented any attention paid to his siblings over him, and his inferiority complex appeared in an instant when in conversation with Nubium.

  "Upon this point Summus agrees," Fecunditatus said. "You had best heed the fact this is how Summus intends to rule now."

  "Because this is what you choose."

  The sword was laid upon the couch, Nubium pulled himself to a sitting position, and Fecunditatus saw the flicker of defiance in his youngest brother.

  "If you choose to view it as such, then, yes. The time has come."

  Even Fecunditatus had to acknowledge Nubium's magnetism when Nubium chose to show it. He stood up from his couch, brought himself up to full height, and lowered his hand to rest upon the hilt of his sword. There had not been a physical confrontation between members of the Five in three centuries, and Fecunditatus hoped this would not deteriorate into a situation where the streak would be put in jeopardy. With Nubium, Fecunditatus understood an attempt to find some sort of resolution short of violence would be the first option, but when the fight came to him, none short of Summus would have the power to leave the outcome of a confrontation to not favor Nubium. At least one of the Five wondered whether only Nubium would have a chance to defeat their father. Fecunditatus knew this portion of his attempt to affect change on Earth, this stage when he would try to enlist Nubium as an ally, was over.

  "You overstep your bounds even as one of us."

  "Father will not see it so."

  Fecunditatus turned and made for the door after Nubium hefted his sword. The conversation had indeed run its course, and he would rather not die by the weapon he gave Nubium.

  "Change is at hand, Nubium. Even you will not be spared the winds of change."

  Nubium stared at his brother as he left the chambers, and a wave of rage battered against him. He could calm himself, he gave thought to doing so, but he also thought how enjoyable ravaging a mortal could be with his sense heightened due to unchecked emotion. Nubium resolved to hunt. He called forth his steed.

  Piety never dictated one thought or action for Audrey Reynolds, which is not to say she did not believe in the gods. Few were counted among the disbelievers, and while Audrey thought herself in control of her life, thought she was the one who determined her course independently of outside influences, she knew they existed. She knew the power they wielded and what disbelief and defiance could bring. Audrey lived by the credo of do no harm, and as she neared thirty, she felt she had done as well as could be expected.

  Her father would invoke the gods whenever a suitor came calling. When Audrey entered a room, men both available and otherwise watched her cross it. They would imagine caressing her long legs, cupping her breasts in their hands, the taste of her lips, the taste of her pussy, the ecstasy certain to accompany true beauty. Audrey's father knew strawberry blonde hair, eyes gleaming with charisma, a smile to light the darkest room, and everything else that made it appear as though she dripped sex would make her a target for possession as much as passion.

  For the whole of her life, her father had done well to protect her, but he let down his guard with what would be the one against whom he should have shown the greatest vigilance. While Audrey never thanked or cursed the gods, when it came to her father's protection, when it came to his love and adherence to the notion he was to look out for her, always, Audrey could never shake the memory of the one time her father let her down.

  There was rankness in the air as she sipped a latte outside the coffee shop affectionately called "The Place." For more than an hour she tried to enjoy her drink and the spectacular way the setting sun bounced off the clouds that had rolled in as evening turned to night. Audrey could not remember the last time she saw such a sight, but she did wonder whether it was a lack of memory or lack of attention paid to the world around her. She knew the latter to be one of her faults.

  She bussed her table herself, and, as always happened in moments like that, her thoughts turned to Charlie Watson. Charlie. She always took his dishes where they needed to go. She always ran to the store when, like a pregnant woman, Charlie felt the pang of hunger for the most obscure of food. She always told the waitress something about Charlie's order was wrong. That was her role. Her father's role in her relationship accounted for the aforementioned failure in watching for her best interests.

  The air turned from rank to downright foul, and it caused her to quicken her step from the tables outside to the dark alley on the way to the parking lot behind The Place. Again, even with the stench, she could see the absolute beauty in the sky.

  With her attention elsewhere, the thug hunkered down behind the dumpster thought he had the easiest mark he might ever encounter.

  "Help!" she screamed.

  The thug had no intention of being gentle. She had a purse and a clam, and he intended to take both.

  The horse, afterward, Audrey would think of it like a horse, remember it like a horse, and would observe it to be a horse when it was taken away, rammed the would-be rapist. Audrey tumbled to the ground as everything sped up in her mind. She saw her assailant pull a gun. She saw a sword in white flames. She saw the thug's head wobble atop its neck just before falling away.

  As she succumbed to her body shutting down, Audrey Reynolds marveled at the sight of a god standing above her.

  Only Fecunditatus ever entered the chambers of Summus. When the others sought his counsel they did so through Fecunditatus, and he reveled being as the sole child with whom his father interacted. It had been so since Summus retreated, permanently, to his chambers upon the death of his beloved Mae, a mortal, a woman who chose life without Summus when she decided Summus incapable of love. He could have reversed the outcome, he could have repaired the slit wrists and restored her to life, but when he saw the lengths to which she would go to escape him and life with him, he simply
did not have the heart to bring her back. That was the last time anyone or anything, including Fecunditatus, saw him.

  The chambers were dark. When Summus would speak, it was as though the walls themselves were speaking, and the effect was such Fecunditatus felt as though he were inside his father's mind. He thought it entirely possible to be true.

  "I would prefer unanimity in such a decision."

  Fecunditatus knew he heard a voice, but it felt so much like his entire body was receiving the message. Long ago he stopped trembling at the reaction it caused, and he even though knew he had nothing to fear from his father, he never lingered in the chambers for long.

  "Nubium is far too much a slave to agree."

  There was a pause, and the blackness of the dark became somehow blacker. Fecunditatus hoped for quick resolution to the issue.

  "Perhaps Nubium's opposition is warranted regardless of the validity of his reasoning." Now Fecunditatus knew he must tread lightly as the thought of Frigoris, in his exile on the far side, flashed in his mind.

  "Cognitum cannot affect the change necessary. Vaporum cannot exact a fee large enough. Anguis cannot be trusted. Something must be done or we risk every mortal rising against us."

  The pause, a time when Fecunditatus knew the decision to be made and the finality of it, stretched on forever.

  "And Nubium represents